Chapter 11 - the trap rachel chose to set)
After the orange juice appeared on Megan’s porch, Rachel stopped waiting for Travis to make the next move.
She asked to speak privately with Detective Ruiz.
“I can bring him out.”
Ruiz immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“You haven’t even heard the idea.”
“I know where this is going.”
“He wants control over me.”
“That makes you a target, not bait.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“He called me because he wanted me to react.”
“Yes.”
“He sent the shelter photo because he wanted me afraid.”
“Yes.”
“He went near Sophie because he thinks she can destroy his story.”
“Yes.”
Rachel held Ruiz’s gaze.
“So give him a story he can’t resist.”
Ruiz was silent.
Rachel explained.
Travis believed Rachel had hidden something from police.
She wanted investigators to leak a controlled piece of information suggesting Hannah had mailed a second package to Rachel shortly before Lucy’s hospitalization.
It was impossible chronologically, of course.
Hannah had disappeared years before Rachel met Travis.
But the leak would claim Hannah’s package had remained with a lawyer, to be delivered if Travis ever resurfaced under another identity.
Inside, supposedly, was direct proof of both murders.
“He’ll know it’s fake,” Ruiz said.
“Maybe.”
“He knows Hannah never knew you.”
“But he doesn’t know what Hannah arranged.”
Ruiz considered it.
Rachel continued.
“He has spent his whole life surviving because he assumes other people know less than he does.”
“What makes you think he’ll take the risk?”
“Because uncertainty is the one thing he can’t control.”
Ruiz did not approve the plan that day.
Federal investigators were now involved because Travis had crossed state lines.
A behavioral specialist reviewed the idea.
Eventually, a safer version was developed.
No public leak.
Instead, investigators would allow information to reach one person Travis was likely monitoring.
Rachel’s sister Julia.
Julia would send Rachel a message mentioning Hannah’s sealed evidence package and a temporary evidence transfer.
If Travis still had access to Julia’s communications, he might act.
They did not know whether he did.
The message was sent.
Nothing happened for eleven hours.
Then Julia received a response from an unknown account.
What package?
She did not answer.
Ten minutes later another message arrived.
Rachel is lying to you.
Then:
Where is she keeping it?
Investigators traced the connection through multiple relays.
No precise location.
Rachel typed a reply under police supervision.
You already know.
Travis answered.
You have no idea what you’re doing.
Rachel wrote:
Hannah knew exactly what you did.
The response came immediately.
Hannah knew nothing.
Rachel’s heart pounded.
She typed:
Then you shouldn’t be afraid of what she recorded before you took her to the basement.
Silence.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Twenty.
Then Travis called.
Police recorded everything.
“You think this is funny?”
Rachel’s voice stayed calm.
“No.”
“You’re using a dead woman to manipulate me.”
“She left evidence.”
“You have nothing.”
“Then why are you calling?”
Silence.
Rachel continued.
“What happened in the basement, Travis?”
“She attacked me.”
Detective Ruiz’s eyes widened.
Rachel nearly lost her composure.
He had admitted being there with Hannah.
Not murder.
But presence.
“Hannah attacked you?”
“She was insane.”
“You told police you hadn’t seen her.”
“She followed me.”
“To the machine shop?”
Silence.
Rachel pushed.
“And your mother? Did she follow you there too?”
“Stop.”
“Two women tried to leave you.”
“Stop.”
“Two women ended up dead.”
“Rachel.”
“And when I wanted a job, you started poisoning Lucy.”
“I was protecting my family.”
The room went completely still.
Rachel’s eyes filled, but she kept speaking.
“By drugging a two-year-old?”
“She was never in danger.”
“She was in an emergency room.”
“Because you panicked.”
Rachel looked toward Ruiz.
“Where are you?”
Travis laughed.
“You think I’m stupid?”
“No.”
“Then stop trying to trap me.”
The line went dead.
The behavioral specialist exhaled.
“That was useful.”
Rachel felt sick.
Useful.
Her daughter’s poisoning reduced to useful evidence.
But she understood.
Every admission mattered.
Then Ruiz received a location update.
Travis’s call had been routed carefully, but a traffic camera system identified a vehicle associated with one of his aliases within minutes of the call.
He was heading east.
Toward Ohio.
Toward the storage unit Hannah had left behind.
Police believed he thought the supposed second evidence package might be there.
They prepared the facility.
Rachel was moved to a secure observation location far from the scene.
At 1:42 in the morning, cameras captured Travis approaching the storage building on foot.
He wore dark clothing and gloves.
He cut through a side fence.
He entered through a maintenance door.
Officers moved in.
For the first time in days, Rachel allowed herself to believe it was ending.
Then the radio erupted.
“He’s running.”
Travis had discovered the surveillance equipment.
He broke through a rear exit and disappeared into an industrial yard.
Police dogs tracked him toward the freight line.
Then the trail stopped beside a slow-moving cargo train.
He had climbed aboard.
Again, he escaped.
But this time he left something behind.
His backpack.
Inside was cash.
A handgun.
Several forged IDs.
And a photograph of Rachel holding Lucy outside the hospital.
May you like
On the back he had written:
If I lose everything, so does she.
